ielts_course_wadi_hawafandomcom-20200214-history
IELTS course Wadi Hawa Wiki
Welcome to the IELTS course Wadi Hawa Wiki All the homework and explanations for our IELTS course. Sunday's from 7-9pm. November to March 09.11.2014 - First Class (Introduction) In this class we looked at the format of the IELTS test and you did a practice test with some reading and writing questions. IELTS test breaks down as follows: 4 Sections - Reading (60min): Three long reading passages with questions. Texts range from descriptive to factual to discursive to analytical. Includes non- verbal materials like diagrams, graphs or illustrations. 40 questions in all - approximately 1 and a half minutes per question. - Writing (60min): Two tasks. Writing task of at least 150 words where you must summarise, describe or explain a table, graph, chart or diagram. Short essay of at least 250 words - Listening (30 min): Four recorded monologues and conversations. 40 questions in all - approximately 1 and a half minutes per questions. - Speaking (11-14min): face-to-face interview. Includes short questions, speaking at length about a familiar topic and a structured discussion 16.11.2014 - Second Class (true/false/not given reading) In the second class we started to look at one kind of question in the Reading section. We discussed the True/False/Not Given kind of questions. First we had an example: We looked at a text: Chilies originate in South America and have been eaten for at least 9,500 years. Then we looked at the questions: # Chiles come from South America # People began eating Chiles in the last few centuries # South Americans were the first people to start eating Chiles Then we analysed the answers: ' Number one is clearly true. Notice the use of the synonym 'come from' used instead of 'originates'. It is common to use different words. Two is clearly false as it was 9,500 years ago, not a few 100 years ago. Three is not in the text. Be careful about making assumptions then thinking it is true. It is quite probable the South Americans began eating Chiles first as they originated there; however, you can't be sure of that and the text does not tell you that. Homework for this class: 23.11.2014 - Third Class (matching questions topics headings with paragraphs) ''In this class we looked at the type of question that asks to match the headings (or paragraph title) with the Paragraphs. Things to remember: # First read the headings and try and understand their meaning # Think of synonyms for key words when reading the questions: Key words '''Words mentioned more than once/Nouns/Answer to How Much,Many,Who questions/Qualifying words like many, all, a few/negative words # Go back to text: Remember most of the time topic sentence will be in the first sentence! '' # Put your guess next to the paragraph, don't worry if you have more than one guess for each paragraph. At the end, look over the paragraphs and see if you can find the 'best' answer. Always remember that the task is asking you for the Topic of the paragraph. Homework for this class: 29.11.2014 - Fourth Class (Matching Sentence Endings) ''In this class we looked at questions that ask us to complete the paragraph in a summary of a text or add a few words to a summary You will get a series of incomplete sentences and you need to match them with their correct ending using information from the text. There are normally 5 or 6 sentences and 8 to 10 different endings. The example I gave in class was: Sentence Beginnings: 1. The tourism industry in the UK suffered financially 2. There was a ban on burials of animals in quicklime 3. The first animal became infected 4.The policy of transporting dead animals was challenged in the courts 5. A policy of vaccination was not introduced Sentence Endings: A. because a farmer used untreated waste as feed. B. because the number of cases fell between May and September. C. because footpaths were closed due to the foot and mouth outbreak. D. because it also affected animals that were not affected by the disease E. because it might reduce the profits of farmers. F. because a similar programme had worked well in The Netherlands. G. because of the adoption of European legislation in the UK. H. because many abattoirs were closed Things to remember about this kind of question: 1. This question is designed to test your understanding of the main idea's(the gist). You will need to find synonyms for words and look for whole phrases that have a similar meaning. 2. The questions in follow the order of the text 3. The sentence ending look grammatically similar so you can't always know just from trying to match them grammatically, although sometimes this method can help make quick decisions. 4. You will not use all of the ending because there will always be more endings that sentence beginnings. 5. The first question is always the hardest. In this type of question, it makes no sense for you to give one and a half minutes to every question. The first question you look at will be the hardest as you still have 8 or 9 options available to you. Also, the last question will be the easiest because you will have less options to choose from, so you can count on spending less time on the last one. 'Look at the example carefully if there is one but don’t cross off the answer for the example as in the instructions it states ‘you may use any phrase more than once’ . This means the endings which have been given a letter can be used more than once. ' Homework for this class: 07.12.2014 - Fifth Class (Matching Information) In this class we looked at a reading passage that was different advertisements about language schools. What to remember about this type of question: 1) the information given is not necessarily in order 2) this type of question tests for general skimming and scanning for key words but also reading for detail 3) like all IELTS question, getting the key words and finding synonyms for them will help you. This type of question is not always in the form that I gave you and sometimes comes in the form of a paragraph very much like the other questions. Please try and do this example as well. 14.12.2014 - 6th Class (Multiple Choice) TBC...